Kobe Bryant turned pro at 18. Now 34, the Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar is in his 17th season. Wednesday night against the franchise that drafted him and traded him to L.A. before Bryant ever played an NBA game, he scored his 30,000th point, and then some, to become the youngest player ever to reach the milestone.

Pat Sullivan/Associated Press file photo

Kobe Bryant turned pro at 18. Now 34, the Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar is in his 17th season. Wednesday night against the franchise that drafted him and traded him to L.A. before Bryant ever played an NBA game, he scored his 30,000th point, and then some, to become the youngest player ever to reach the milestone.

NEW ORLEANS – Kobe Bryant grinned and uttered the word “irony” as he considered the fact that the team that drafted him nearly 17 years ago was his opponent on the night he eclipsed a scoring milestone to join an exclusive club of NBA greats.

It’s easy to forget that it was the Hornets who drafted and then traded Bryant away back in 1996.

In the years since, the Hornets have changed cities, from Charlotte to New Orleans, and Bryant has become one of five players in NBA history to score 30,000 points, surpassing the mark with a 29-point performance that helped the Lakers to a 103-87 triumph Wednesday night.

“It’s funny how sports always seems to kind of have that connectivity, in some shape, form or fashion,” Bryant said. “It just always seems to come full circle.”

Bryant entered the game needing 13 points to make history, and no one doubted he would get it. NBA Commissioner David Stern, who happened to be making a scheduled visit with new Hornets owner Tom Benson, offered Bryant a congratulatory handshake before tipoff.

Bryant had 17 points by halftime, eclipsing the 30,000-mark with a short jumper in the paint over Robin Lopez late in the first half. That might have been the least spectacular of his baskets, which included the usual array of soaring dunks, demoralizing transition 3-pointers and twisting, off-balance jumpers.

The only other players to score more than 30,000 are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Bryant said. “These are players I respect tremendously and obviously grew up idolizing and watching and learned a great deal from.”

When Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni was asked before tipoff about Bryant’s impending milestone, the coach joked, “That just means he is old.”

In fact, at 34, Bryant is younger than the other four were when they hit the mark, but Bryant also turned pro at 18 and is in his 17th season.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I’m still working as hard as I am after 17 years,” Bryant said. “That’s the thing that I’m most proud of – every year, every day working hard at it. It’s a lot of years, a lot of work.”

After the game, Bryant sat at his locker, reflecting on the elite company he now keeps in NBA history, and the things he sees in younger, prolific scoring stars such as Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, whom the Lakers will face Friday night, and who very well could join the 30,000-point club at the rate he’s going.

One common characteristic, Bryant said, is an apparent immunity to both pressure and criticism.

“Scorers kind of have a fighter-pilot mentality. We’re a different breed,” he said. “But there are different positions. We scored in a myriad of ways. We all went about it differently in different situations. It’s fun to see.”